We don't have spelt tortillas in the fridge anymore. Portions for only two. I don't eat dinner here anymore. I only sleep here anymore. I don't live here anymore.

I miss my mother. I wish we could find eachother again, stay calm again long enough to find that laughing space used to dwell in. I can't even find it on a map now.

I miss my family. Those I haven't lost I'll loose soon. They were never mine, this is true. I was the thief in their kitchen, stealing moments of cheeks rosy with wine and rich stories, stealing moments of tradition, asking to see the Russian Babushka dolls again to count the babies and put them back, taking their gifts as if the trinkets and old hot pads were the very physicalization of love and I always knew this day would come. String the thief up! She must pay for her crimes. The law is only fair.

But what I don't miss is that feeling of want. That gnawing ache from the pit of my stomach that drove me to steal, made me crawl on bitter knees begging for those nights out, lapping up every minute with them before they die happy and healthy and old. I sat at those kitchen tables as a foreigner, observing with eyes that betrayed me. It was always as if the spoke a nother language, and I just sat there smiling and laughed when everyone else laughed. I was too afraid to raise my camera to remember the way the shadows fell across my grandfathers face while he sat at the head of the table. I don't miss that fear. But I do miss the face.

I don't miss the staleness or the stagnant waters that poisoned my moat. I don't miss the moat. I filled the moat with sand bags and ran across on dry ground to solid ground. I'm safe here. I'm more here. I'm home here.

This is the physicalization of love; to laugh when your naked, to cry and not worry about make-up.

-A.H.